Ch. 1 - Determining Deviance Flashcards
How do dictionaries define deviance?
Straying from objective norms.
What are the issues with using dictionary definitions of deviance?
How far do you have to stray to be qualified as deviant? Where do objective norms come from?
What are the two traditional types of definitions of deviance?
Objective and subjective.
What does the objective approach to deviance focus on?
The act of deviance; including why people do deviant things and how we should respond.
How is deviance objectively defined?
Deviance is defined by a common characteristic and we know it when we see it.
What does the subjective approach to deviance focus on?
The perceptions of and reactions to deviance.
How is deviance subjectively defined?
Deviance is not associated with a particular characteristic, but is instead socially defined. We are taught what is deviant.
What four objective criteria are available for labelling something as deviant?
Statistical rarity, harm, societal reaction, and normative violation.
What is the issue with the statistical rarity criteria for deviance?
How is “rare” defined?; some behaviours are not rare but deviant; many behaviours are rare but not deviant.
What is an example of an action that is rare but not deviant?
Homosexuality.
What is an example of an action that is not rare but still deviant?
Underage drinking.
What is the harm criteria of objective deviance?
Something is deviant if it causes harm.
What is ideological harm?
Any threat to the dominant worldview.
What are some problems with the harm criteria?
Perceptions of harm are subjective and can change over time.
What is one merit to the harm criteria?
It can point society in the direction of something where harm must be minimized, but can’t provide any solutions.
When does the harm criteria backfire?
When the reaction to the deviance causes more harm than the deviant act itself. E.g., the criminalization of drug use.
What are the problems with the societal reaction criteria?
Some people’s reactions count more than others, such as politicians; who many negative reactions are necessary to qualify something as deviant?
What is the main issue with the normative violation criteria?
Not all norms are the same.
What are the 3 different types of norms?
Folkways, mores, and laws.
What are folkways?
Informal norms, everyday customs, society’s expectations around etiquette.
What are mores?
More serious norms than folkways, but still informal.
How is breaking mores viewed?
As a moral threat to society.
What are laws?
Norms thought to be so important to the proper functioning of society that they are codified.
What is the difference between prescriptive and proscriptive norms?
Prescriptive defines what we should do, proscriptive defines what we should not do.
What are the three sources of norms?
Consensus, conflict, and interactionist views.
What is a consensus origin of norms?
Society’s members all agreed on the norms that govern the society.
What is a conflict origin of norms?
Norms and laws are used by society’s elite to promote and protect their own interests.
What is the interactionist view of the origin of norms?
The powerful do not enact laws and create norms solely for their own benefit.
What are the two types of consensus deviance?
High-consensus deviance and low-consensus deviance.
According to subjectivism, what serves as the foundation for determining deviance?
Dominant moral codes.
What is key to understanding where dominant moral codes come from?
Power dynamics.
How do dominant moral codes emerge?
Through processes of social construction. Something is only deviant once it has been labelled as such.
What does radical/strict constructionism state?
We must understand deviance as having no essential reality; everything is constructed.
What does soft/contextual constructionism state?
There are limits to constructionism, there is only an element of objective reality.
What are the four levels of social construction?
Sociocultural, institutional, interactional, and individual.
What is sociocultural social construction?
How a society’s values and beliefs determine what is deviant.
What is institutional social construction?
The different institutions that make up our society such as education, religion, politics, etc.
What is interactional social construction?
The things that you learn in your socialization and interactions teach you what is and is not deviant.
What is individual social construction?
Our own self-conceptions and identities come to determine what we think of as deviant.
How do contemporary understandings of deviance treat the subjective/objective dichotomy?
It is thought of as a continuum.
What does understanding an act of deviance require of us?
We must situate it within the larger context in which it occurs; therefore the study is about rule-making as much as it is rule-breaking.
What are moral entrepreneurs?
Those who seek to define something or someone as deviant and dictate the appropriate response.
What does the social typing process refer to?
The process by which a person, behaviour, or characteristic is deviantized.
What are the three elements of the social typing process?
Description, evaluation, and prescription.
What is the description element of the social typing process?
The label or category where someone or something is placed.
What is the evaluation element of the social typing process?
The judgement or assumptions about the deviant behaviour.
What is the prescription element of the social typing process?
The social control or sanctions put in place to deal with the deviant behaviour.
What are the four types of sanctions?
Formal and informal, retroactive and preventative.
What are formal sanctions?
Formal actions sought by people working in their official capacities within an institution.
What are informal sanctions?
Sanctions that occur within our informal social interactions between friends, family, and even strangers.
What are retroactive sanctions?
Punishment after the fact.
What are preventative sanctions?
Done to stop deviant behaviour from occurring.
